Me & The Boys on the Yanks. Every Single Day.

Not to Be.

As I sat on the couch in Bri Rumble’s living room late Friday night after game three, feeling like I just got punched in the stomach by Kenny Rogers, I looked to my right and saw a stuffed animal sitting up against the wall. It was actually a stuffed “Big Bird” from Sesame Street. A pretty nice one; official and everything, with its elongated beak and familiar bright yellow hue. It belonged to Bri’s 8-month old daughter, Emma; a gift from her Uncle Mike. I picked it up and held it on my lap. I was not feeling good about having to come back the next day and face an elimination game on the road. “You know what?” I said to Mrs. Bri Rumble, “It really does make you feel better.” She giggled at the ridiculousness of a grown man holding Big Bird like a little kid. “You can borrow Big Bird if you want,” she said. “No thanks,” I said, “Emma won’t ever go near it again.” Bri, picking up on where I was going, finished my joke; “Yeah. It will smell like hate…”

I have no words to soothe anybody on this, by far my least favorite day of the whole year. I wish somebody had words to soothe me. I’ll do one more post after this to clean things up, and I’ll post the Wifflemania pictures like I promised. Then I’ll shut it down for a while and try and get some sleep, like the big boy is always telling me to.

By way of analysis, I don’t have a whole lot here. I really don’t have a good handle on what happened, exactly. Tony Sherry said it best today, as the game was going on. “I just don’t get it,” he said. “It just doesn’t make any sense. How is this offense that’s so good all of the sudden this bad. This is mind-boggling.” Tony was right. You can go two ways with it. The first way is to say that they just ran into an unbelievably hot team that absolutely brought everything together at exactly the right time. It’s tough to argue. I said at the start of this series that the biggest thing to watch out for was the pitching; that these guys had three exceptional starting pitchers, any one of whom had the ability to rip off a premier game at any time. They hadn’t really ever all put it together at the same time, but they had the talent. The fourth pitcher, by the way, was Kenny Rogers, who did not, in my opinion, have the ability to do anything well in the postseason. Well, this team put on a pitching display the likes of which I have absolutely never seen before. Not in ’01 with Johnson and Schilling. Not the ’03 Marlins, and certainly not the "big three” in Oakland in the late nineties. I have never seen any pitching staff do what those guys did to the Yankee lineup in this series. Not ever. I could cite any number of examples, but I’ll pick one that stuck out to the point where it was almost comical. Jeremy Bonderman, as he took a perfect game into the fifth inning, had only thrown 37 pitches. And of those, 30 were strikes and only 7 were balls. You almost have to laugh. Only seven balls through five full innings!

The other argument you could make is that Brian Cashman has put together a team built for speed in the regular season, which sputters when the stakes are high. I was never a big proponent of this one, but I’ll admit it warrants discussion. When your game is patience, bleeding pitchers, and waiting for your pitch, you also need to have a "plan B” for when the pitcher is throwing strikes. We thought we had that covered, as we have a lot of guys who will pound the ball and make you pay for throwing it down the middle. Well, maybe we didn’t have it covered. It’s tough to kill the Yankees for not hitting here, though, because the Tigers pitchers were all painting the corners and dropping balls right on the edge of the strike zone. They were truly phenomenal. Were the Yankees too aggressive? Did they swing too early in the count and not take their pound of flesh? I don’t know. I do know one thing. The Yankees didn’t pitch like they needed to. Wang is a reliable starter, and Moose is going to keep you in the game. But we don’t have anybody who is going to go out there and make you look silly for seven or eight innings. Our guys just aren’t going to do that. We need a few of those guys, so that when we run into a hot pitcher we don’t find ourselves down 5-0 in the fifth, getting too aggressive because we need to score runs in big bunches. Those games need to be 1-0 or 2-1 in the sixth, so that we can stay on our game. Do the current personnel have the fortitude to win in the playoffs? It’s tough to say, but I’m not exactly convinced they do, at this point. Was it any wonder that the only guys who had anything going today were Derek Jeter, who showed again why he deserves whatever accolades they shower him with, and Jorge Posada, who pulled out a sidearm and put one in Jamie Walker’s throat, just so he didn’t walk off the mound in the ninth feeling unscathed? And the closest we came to scoring runs on Friday was a ball off of Bernie’s bat, just inches foul. The old guard never stops fighting. I just wish some of the other guys were paying attention.

We returned to Bri Rumble’s house on Saturday to watch game 4, mostly because we felt that lightning wasn’t going to strike twice in the same spot. This time it was Bri Rumble, Mikey Rumble, Mikey Juice, Sean, Tony Sherry, and me. Sean made some great points as he waxed philosophical about Yankee-haters. This is the golden age of Yankee haters. They really couldn’t have asked for a more perfect few seasons. Aside from the fact that the Yankees have kept their teams from making the playoffs on a few occasions, these past few iterations of the Yankees have allowed for some of the most satisfying moments in Yankee-hating history. An excruciating bottom-of-the-ninth comeback loss in game seven of the World Series in 2001. How many times in history has that happened? One or two maybe. That’s about it. A blown 2-games-to-1 lead in the World Series against the ’03 Marlins, a team who most still believe didn’t belong on the same field with them. They became the only team in the great century of professional baseball to blow a 3-0 lead in a postseason series, against their archest of rivals. They have watched those same archrivals win a World Championship when they could not, and could very well watch another this year with the almost-as-archrival Mets. And in four of the last five years, they have been washed out of the playoffs by losing three (or more) games in a row. And finally, this year, with a lineup that was touted as one of “the best ever” (although that was certainly trumped up, due not in small part to Yankee-haters who knew that the bigger the hype, the more brilliant the crash), they were humiliated to the tune of zero runs in twenty straight innings of baseball.

The Yankees and their fans are never eliminated as an afterthought. They are always taken down in a public execution. They are led to the gallows to the raucous cheers of the gathered crowds. They are read the charges of high crimes and misdemeanors against them, and they are always the same. Their misdemeanor? Gluttony. Their high crime? Nobility. And then they are very publicly hanged while the throngs roar with approval. The masses will not be denied their opportunity to watch the mighty fall. And that’s okay. It’s part of what we Yankee fans sign up for. Some of us make a choice. Some of us are born into it. But all of us wouldn’t trade it for the world.

The crowd at Bri Rumble’s today was defeated early. It was clear before long that there was to be no celebration. By the late innings, when the game and the season were drawing their last few breaths, most of the boys had ceased watching the carnage. Bri and Sean were out by the barbeque pit in the backyard, smoking cigars and commiserating. Mikey Juice and Mike Rumble were in the kitchen with the girls, eating a fifth meal and playing with the babies. Tony Sherry had already started on his way back to Staten Island. But in the living room, still in front of the TV, sat exactly one lone figure, his secret hopes for a miracle dwindling moment by moment. He sat wearing his lucky hat and his Bernie Williams jersey, the one he was not yet ready to give up on. And cradled tightly in his arms was a stuffed bird, with an elongated beak and familiar bright yellow hue…

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28 Comments

Geoff, as a fan, I feel your pain. Not as a yankee fan, just as a fan. Of any team. The Yanks need to rethink. I just found out today that Craig Wilson was left off the post season roster. That boggles my mind. First base? That is THE cornerstone of defence in baseball. Just ask the BLue Jays and look up the stats to see how they did after Olerud left. And you put in a novice? No freakin way.
Mo is the best closer in the closer era, hands down. Too bad he never got in a save situation. Trade the big dinosaur names, build your team on the Melky’s and the Cano’s.

Thats all I have to say.

Maybe the 06 Yans WERE the best offence ever. But when a team gets 80+ dingers from its bottom third AND the best team ERA for the season, you can NOT count them out. I think the 06 Yanks learned that the hard way against teh 06 Tigers.

Does anybody even care that the Tigers haven’t had a record above .500 since 1993? I doubt a Yankee fan will take much solace out of that tonight.

I think the Yankees are not a team — no one on the team trusts the other to do his job. We have no one on first base (wasn’t it pathetic how the Tigers ran on Giambi?). For that matter, we really have no one at third base either. As Sharon Pearce has pointed out on Outofthebullpen.mlblogs.com, Miguel Cairo has been one of our best infielders. I think the team actually got worse when Sheff and Matsui came back. I love them both, but the team WAS beginning to come together without them. Craig Wilson and Aaron Guiel were both off the roster, and that was a mistake. Guiel was more clutch than A-Rod.

We haven’t had pitching since we let Petitte go. It amazed me how we were willing to try Sidney Ponson (whom we wouldn’t buy when he actually was good) and Cory Lidle, but didn’t take a stab at David Wells, at all. Can you imagine if we had Wells today? Every day, except when Wong and Mussina pitch, an already nervous team doesn’t know what it’s going to get on the mound. Jaret Wright is actually beginning to be ok — we gave him no offense. But, “ok” is not what the Yankees are used to. Besides Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon, who is there for the rest of the team to feel extraordinarily confident in? There WAS Cano and Melky, but, contrary to what everyone else said, I saw Melky get very quiet once Sheff and Matsui return. Can you believe he was left out of any of our post-season, after having been such a big part of our success? Cano, I think, lost faith in the team as a result, as well.

I have grown to truly hate the Mets, but they have a cohesive group. If David Wright doesn’t hit, Carlos Delgado does, etc. They pick each other up. And they have so much pitching compared with what we have.

As everyone has said, it’s time to re-build the farm system and bring youth in generally. I think it’s also important to look at team chemistry. I think A-Rod plays a different style of baseball than Jeter – he likes to drop fielder’s choices so that he can sneak in a double play. I saw him try to do that and Jeter race to catch the ball at the last minute. How can they work together and have such different philosophies?

I take solace, oddly enough, in Johnny Damon and also in Jeter and Posada. They were pretty consistent throughout. Abreu’s ok. Cano and Melky are terrific.

We have a lot of good features, but we have to build a team around them and not impose the wrong players on them.

Let’s trade A-Rod, at the very least. He’s an excellent shortstop and it’s time for him to go back to being just that. He’s not flexible and he’s not really a Yankee. Actually, he’d make a great Red Sock with his dirty style of play. I’d trade him for Mike Lowell or Kevin Youkilis, but they’d never do it. At this point, I’d trade him for some good pitching prospects.

First of all the Yankee’s only won a couple more games then the Tigers in the regular season. To flat out state that they are a better team is just NY hype. History means nothing, and once you start expecting a ball club to win the World Series, thats usually when you need to take a step back and check yourself.

Sure the lineup of the Yankee’s is probably one of the best MLB has ever seen in a long time. Also the most expensive. Clearly they can do some damage. There is no question about that.

However, the starting rotation of the Yankee’s compared to the starting rotation of the Tigers…..there is no comparison. The numbers don’t lie. The bullpen of the Yankee’s isn’t even on the same page as the Tigers. If you wear down NY’s starting pitcher and force them to go to their bullpen…..they are in trouble. It’s the opposite of the Tigers. Pitching always dominates hitting because if you can’t hit the ball you cannot score runs. Thats plain and simple.

The one good starting pitcher you have only won 2 more games then Kenny Rogers. To simply just give him credit is rediculous, because he came out on to that field with more effort, emotion, and determination then anyone has seen in a while. He tore that line up apart, bar-none.

The Big difference is this….NY Yankee’s have a 200 million dollar line up, and the Tigers I believe are under a 90 million. However, lets not talk about money but respect. Sure we should have won the division, and probably could of had the best record in MLB. Yes Bonderman, the bullpen, and Rogers fate laid on the line. It didn’t happen, but you know what we still respect those players as fans because we know that they gave us everything on the field. It’s pretty bad when A-Rod is boo’d more at NY, then he is in Detroit! He is a great player, but oh not to NY standards.

The big difference is respect and NY fans don’t respect there players unless they are perfect, and when someone out plays them, or has a better team it’s always someone’s elses fault. We here in Detroit respect are ball club, and thats the very reason the Yanks lost.

You got Beat, straight up. No excuses, certainly none that money can buy. You had 2 23 year olds that pitched stellar performances, and a 41 year old that just simply had enough of you guys. Kenny Rogers tossed a gem, because you said he couldn’t! The man pitched a perfect game over 10 years ago, but that was his best game ever!

The thing is Kenny Rogers didn’t have to worry going into that game that he had 50,000 people against him if he made a mistake the next morning when he read the paper. He went in knowing the Detroit Tiger Fans supported him, and you know what I don’t think I can say that about NY?

Tiger fan, some points I agree and disagree with. I agree that the Tigers should have won the division and even though us Yankee fans thought we were the better team, we also knew the Tigers are a tough one also. Their pitching hinged on the success of 3 pitchers who I think had no prior playoff experience and those results are normally not what happened. A good series for the Tigers, I hope they don’t fall apart and experience a let-down after the series they just had.

We’ve had our highlights and our low lights but no one can ever doubt the true loyalty and knowledge of Yankee fans, many of whom contributed to this blog. I want to thank Mr. Pinstripes for writing some of the most insightful entries anywhere and for providing a place for likeminded contributors. So thanks for your perspective on the season, thanks for the breaking down some statistical science and thanks for the space.

Your comments regarding the golden-age for Yankee haters and the public execution of Yankee fans could not have been more eloquently written. I now have a few more bullets that I can articulate when defending my Yankees’ honor! Unless you’re a Yankee fan, you just don’t get it, do you? Thanks for taking the time put it in writing.

I love it!!! We hear it all year long from the SAWX fans and now when Tigers pull off 3 amazing games in a row Scottobias appears. I give your team credit they were hot and we were not but to do a double post and saying history means nothing??? Come on dude!!! Who are the tigers? My history is full of great yankee moments, a few bad but the great ones stand out 10 fold!! It is easy to say that history means nothing when your history is losing 113 games. Good luck building a history like ours! I hope u make it to the World Series jst so Kenny Rodgers can get wambazzellled by the Mets!!!!!!

these guys don’t play “together” and they never will. This is a lineup, but not a team.

whatever….for YEARS now, the Yankees have been completely useless, not just in the playoffs, but against pitchers they’ve never seen. We freeze because everybody is trying to win his own game.

maybe we deserve what we get. we’ve had no pitching and no team since 2001. No first base or third base since the combination of “Robin Zeile”. And Torre has been sounding like Art Howe for, at least three years. Even the Mets don’t want to hear how their team “battled” but didn’t win.

Some people would argue that the last real winning team we had was coached by Buck Showalter and Torre reaped the benefits of his work.

I love Sheffield, but putting him at first base and ruining the team’s chemistry was so foolish. He got greedy for his bat, but both Craig Wilson and Aaron Guiel were very clutch players for us. Andy Phillips is okay, but…

I give up. No one tries to figure out

1) Why we can’t hit new pitching?

2) Why we shut down collectively?

3) Why we do just as well with utility players like Cairo as we do with “stars”. Maybe, with Cairo WE TRUST that he knows what he’s doing. Don’t you flinch when A-Rod throws to Giambi. Will he throw into the stands? Will Giambi hurt himself trying to catch?

You really have to be anxious to throw from third to the stands. I used to do that in little league.

Quick. Someone sign me up. I can fail in the clutch and overthrow and I’ll do it for 100,000 and unlimited cheese fries.

Hate to say it, but I saw this coming. Here are some of the reasons we lost: Torre relied too much on Matsui and Sheffield, after they came back from major *wrist* injuries. They weren’t ready. They weren’t 100%. Plain & simple. Joe just didn’t have the guts to bench them. He relies on his veterans, but this time he relied on 2 guys who make mega bucks and were not ready. Let Sheff walk, and trade Allie Boy. This is first time in his career that he’s played on a contender and he chokes, big time. His season stats are great, but too many of them come in non-pressure situations (probably alot like the numbers he had in Seattle & Texas). He’s a great SEASON player, but he just can’t cut it in post-season. Trade him for the other part of our games that showed it’s ugly side – pitching. I kept saying we needed a third guy to throw a quality start and get us into the 7th, and Wright, Lidle to name a couple, just are not that type. We also need chemistry, and the Yankee teams of the 90’s (not “murderers row & Cano…” an all star at every position) had chemistry and THEY didn’t chock. Keys to next year are Cano, Milky (Joe slapped him in the face, IMO), new starters after Wang, and yes, let Moose walk. He criticizes his teammates and that’s not good chemistry, guys…
I’ll tell ya one thing, I’m plenty sick and tired of winning the AL East and then see my team fall flat on it’s face. If it means Joe goes, so be it. We need players that are gutty, pick each other up, both veterans and young blood. Maybe we need a Sweet Lou, somebody that will kick their ***** when needed, and not coddle them , like Joe does. I like Joe, but I’m sick of seeing him just sit on the bench and hardly ever show any emotion. We need to establish a core team. Here’s the players to keep: Matsui, Milky, Damon, Abreu, Jeter, Cano, Giambi and Posada. Let Bernie retire. He been a GREAT Yankee, but it’s his time. We need to clear his spot on the bench. Get Matsui to play first, DH Giambi, and play Melky in left. Third base, get a good glove that hits .275 and will hit in the clutch. Need a good backup for Posada, somebody that can hit. Rotation: Wang, Randall (after he gets his disc repaired and understands, as I think he does, that he’s not the Randall of old, but can still learn to PITCH, and pitch well) and ?, ?, ? for the 3-4-5 spots. Go with some young arms, Hughes ???? and get some of these young arms in return for Allie Boy. Deal Farnsworth for a starter. Keep Scott Proctor and Birney , did I spell that right ??? Keep Craig Wilson, and play him for God’s sake…and keep Cairo, he’s the type of role player who knows how to win that we need. Get more “bridges” like Birney and Proctor to get to Mo. But the key is this: we need to get into the 7th inning, guys !!! So we need more than Wang and Randall. We need starters, and who do you think will bring them ??

Allie Boy. Farnsworth.

I need to see a team next year that has chemistry. I need to see the World Championship Yankee teams of the 90’s. Enough of this Murderers Row/All Star mentality. TEAMS WIN, not individuals.And if Cashman doesn’t understand that, then somebody get me his cell # and I’ll tell him.

Ras #45, a very frustrated Yankke fan for life. Get me a TEAM Brian !!!!!!!!

Yankess got beat by a team with better starting pitching. And a better bullpen, but the bullpen really doesn’t count if the starters don’t deliver.

Torre has always said that the Yankees will go just as far as the starters will take them. He’s right. Haven’t won since Cone left. Haven’t been there since they ditched Andy.

And Torre proved himself wrong, as he, Torre, managed the Yankees into positions well beyond what the starting pitching warranted– in 04, 05, and 06.

Yankees always, including 96-00, have used trades and free agents to improve– but during the 96-00 period the improvements were to the core of a team– getting Tino, getting Brosius, getting Clemens, getting Knoblauch.

That core has been whittled down to Posada, Jeter, Mariano. And that’s not enough.

ARod? Not his fault. He hits 100 HRS, drives in 300+ and people want to spit on him? Bad move getting ARod, giving up Soriano but guess what? ARod didn’t make that move. Cashman did.

I didn’t want ARod either, but blaming him is just one more step in a repetition compulsion that will prevent the team from being built right– with a core, and a corps of starting pitchers brought through the system itself.

“The masses will not be denied their opportunity to watch the mighty fall. And that’s okay. It’s part of what we Yankee fans sign up for. Some of us make a choice. Some of us are born into it. But all of us wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

*********-men. That was very well done. I had to copy and paste it over at my blog.

Pitching and defense wins championships. That’s the lesson that the Yankee brass need to take away from this. Come playoff time, you’re consistently facing a higher caliber of pitcher, and even the greatest lineup can get shut down, evidenced by this series. Our pitching staff needs a complete overhaul. With the exception of Wang and Rivera, and at times Moose, there wasn’t really much consistency from anybody. They put too much stock in the lineup to bail them out and in the end, they failed.

I think it is time for Yankee fans to stop pretending that they have liked this team over the last five years. I was actually happy for the Tigers last night. That’s right, you heard it here first. A team built around Kenny Rogers, Pudge Rodriguez, and Magglio Ordonez took down an all-star team. It is time to get rid of just about everyone on the current Yankee team and start over. Start building around Wang, Jeter, Cano, Cabrera, Mariano, Matsui, and Posada. That’s it. The rest of the mercenaries can take a hike. I got into it a little with Sal on the cell phone today. I told him that I did not like the players on this team and never have. His response was that he roots for the uniform, not the player. I wish that I could but the human side takes over and these overpaid aloof a-holes make me want to explode. There is a reason that A-Rod has never won a title. Or that Sheff has been on 85 different teams in his career despite having Hall Of Fame stats. Randy Johnson has been a hated Yankee killer for his entire career. The problem with that is that he has continued to be one while playing as a Yankee. No one is intimidated by him anymore and it is sad to watch. It is like watching Mike Tyson lose to Kevin McBride. Tyson used to win the fight before the opening bell. That is the type of player Randy used to be. I like Johnny Damon. I really do. But all I see is the bearded guy who won with the Red Sox every time he steps to the plate. We need a guy with some fire, not a smiling “idiot”. We have an ex-juice head DH in Giambi who hits .250. This guy was an MVP first baseman not so long ago. I don’t care that he walks a lot and can “work the count”. You know what; I am done with this rant. I will leave all of you with this. I actually smiled a little when Kenny Rogers poured the champagne on the cop. It was better than looking at the Yankee bench. Sheffield was polishing his resume, A-Rod was looking in the mirror, and Randy Johnson was adding another notch to his Yankee Killing Belt. Enjoy the off season everyone.

In response to michaeljuicej….you missed my point, and let me explain it further. When I state that History and Pinstripes mean nothing I am not talking about the fond memories you have of the NY Yankee’s etc and that type of history. Surely no one can’t take that away from you. I think probably like most people that the NY Yankee’s do have a great ball club, and always have.

The History I am talking about is just because you spend x amount of dollars on a team, and have so many world championships doesn’t give you that ticket to the promise land. Same as a pitcher that has never done well against the Yankee’s, never won in the postseasn, and all the sudden pitches a really great game. It’s clearly unpredictable, hence history can’t explain it, and money can’t buy it.

Once you set the bar so high for a team I think you lose sight and focus of the everyday realities of this great sport. I thought throughout the regular season that Detroit and NY were about on the same page, or level playing wise.

You play for today in the playoffs, history is what it is…..the past…..

Many of your points are well taken and do ring some truth. Even as a Yankee fan I defended some of what you mentioned in the previous entry. What some people are upset at is that the same message was posted twice -on this entry and the previous one. Perhaps you are just trying to make a point, but others may interpret as “pouring salt on an open wound.” I’m not trying to pass judgement on you, but rather offering a different perspective.

Good points scott, I also thought that these two teams were pretty evenly matched, but our previous post-season experience would be the deciding factor. Obviously it wasn’t, and that’s the most important message that I got from your post.

Why does everyone appologize for the jibber jabbs that are being thrown around? This is 50% of the reason I watch sports, the sh*! talking and you have such a politically correct blog that everone pats each other on the back after a negative post!!! SEE you next year IN THE PLAYOFFS AGAIN!!!!

Well I dont know what makes a team go dead like that. My boat used to just conk out like that too. I’d be humming along, and then all of a sudden, it would quit. I spent alot of money trying to get it fixed. Some momentary relief, but in the long run, the same problems kept popping up. Its strangely familiar. I agreed with mr sherry then and now. Sell the boat, not the captain.

They are supposed to be trading in the Purple and Grey colors for some others next year I think, but they sure are ugly, there’s these guys that sorta play in Boston that have some ugly uniforms (and players, fans, etc) as well.

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